All in One Bag

Affective Polarisation & Outgroup Homogeneity

Felix Grünewald

June 22, 2023

Introduction

When does disliking a political opponent become a problem?
Social cohesion - Conflicts not negative, as long as they overlap (Mason, 2016)

→ Peace in danger when opposition perceived as a homogenous group

Start with a rather direct question: When does dislike of a political opponent become problematic?
For the answer, we can look at social cohesion literature
Which says that conflicts can create stability by overlapping
Opponent who is far away from you on one topic can be close to you on another
Creates a big web of coalitions, dependencies, which result in democratic peace
My answer therefore: Peace in danger when opposition is not seen as a mix of individuals but a homogenous/monolithic block
Simple illustration: whereas normally, one could expect to be closer with alternating parties
This changes when outgroup is less differentiated, it doesn’t matter:
- distance to individual parties more similar-
- less likely to form a coalition with an individual outgroup member
Additionally, moderate powers might be be equated to more extreme group members, when they themselves might perceive a large distance between them

Affective Polarisation

Strongly connected to stereotypes, prejudice (Iyengar et al., 2019)
Political parties as identity-forming institutions

→ In- and outgroup dynamics between parties

Outgroup Homogeneity

Concept from Psychology (Boldry et al., 2007; Ostrom & Sedikides, 1992)
Stereotypical traits, attitudes, beliefs: Outgroup is perceived with less variance
Experiments indicate that this is a socially formed effect

➡ Apply to political context

Perception of Political Opponents

Outparty perception can be wrong:

“Americans believe that 32% of Democrats identify as LGB, when in reality this share is 6%.” (Ahler & Sood, 2018)

Estimation dependent on political proximity, favorability (Abeles et al., 2019; Dahlberg, 2013; Krosnick & Brannon, 1993)
UK: Homogeneity perception in opposition party (Kelly, 1989)

Examples

“Socialism is the mainstream of the Biden campaign.”

Donald Trump

“I beat the socialist, that’s how I got elected.”

Joe Biden ¹

Examples

“Socialism is the mainstream of the Biden campaign.”

Donald Trump

“The obvious plan is to build a government with the Left party.” ¹

Paul Ziemiak

Multiparty Context

Multiparty context: polarization research more difficult
No dichotomous distinction between in- and outgroup (Harteveld, 2021)
Homogenously perceived party camps could help explaining polarisation dynamics in this context

Premise: Political parties in multiparty systems are perceived in two distinct camps.

Hypotheses

H1.1: Parties in opposing party camps are perceived as ideologically closer to each other than those in the allied camp.
H1.2: Parties in a party camp are perceived as ideologically closer to each other by members of the opposing party camp than by members of their allied camp.

H2: Perception of homogeneity in the opposite camp is positively related to negative feelings towards that camp.

Operationalisation

The Comparative Study Of Electoral Systems (2020), nine countries ¹
Party camps: Division by average left-right party perception
Homogeneity: Standard deviation of left-right perception
Affect: Mean like-dislike rating of camp-parties

Results

Party Camps

Respondents rate the parties on a Left-Right scale
I used the average rating to sort parties into camps
How many respondents sorted the parties on the same side of the spectrum/in the same camp?
How divisive is the camp affiliation of each party?
Not too much: On average 89% agreement
Only two parties have agreement scores below 70%
You can argue a lot about the party camps, but I would argue there is some agreement on the party camps
Furthermore, I would argue two things:
- Finding effects between these camps can also be taken as an indication of group perceptions
- This grouping makes finding effects harder, as including parties that are not necessarily agreed upon will increase heterogeneity perception
In the future, some clustering algorithm should be used to more clearly define the camps

Homogeneity

Voters of:	N	Incamp	Outcamp	p
Left Camp	8,864	1.78 (0.84)	1.76 (0.93)	0.2
Right Camp	10,266	1.99 (1.03)	1.61 (0.92)	<0.001***
Full Sample	19,130	1.89 (0.95)	1.68 (0.93)	<0.001***

Affect

Discussion

Outcamp is perceived as more homogenous than the incamp
Outgroup perception is less differentiated than ingroup self-perception

Outgroup homogeneity is related to negative affect

Conclusion

Confirmation/statistical approach to party camps necessary
Control variables, observation over time

But: initial confirmation of hypotheses

➡ Outgroup homogeneity is a promising approach in explaining polarization - generally and specifically in multiparty systems

Thank you!

felixgruenewald@outlook.de

twitter.com/felixgruenewald

References

Abeles, A. T., Howe, L. C., Krosnick, J. A., & MacInnis, B. (2019). Perception of public opinion on global warming and the role of opinion deviance. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 63, 118–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.04.001

Ahler, D. J., & Sood, G. (2018). The Parties in Our Heads: Misperceptions about Party Composition and Their Consequences. The Journal of Politics, 80(3), 964–981. https://doi.org/10.1086/697253

Boldry, J. G., Gaertner, L., & Quinn, J. (2007). Measuring the Measures: A Meta-Analytic Investigation of the Measures of Outgroup Homogeneity. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 10(2), 157–178. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430207075153

Dahlberg, S. (2013). Does context matter The impact of electoral systems, political parties and individual characteristics on voters’ perceptions of party positions. Electoral Studies, 32(4), 670–683. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2013.02.003

Harteveld, E. (2021). Fragmented foes: Affective polarization in the multiparty context of the Netherlands. Electoral Studies, 71, 102332. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2021.102332

Iyengar, S., Lelkes, Y., Levendusky, M., Malhotra, N., & Westwood, S. J. (2019). The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22(1), 129–146. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034

Kelly, C. (1989). Political identity and perceived intragroup homogeneity. British Journal of Social Psychology, 28(3), 239–250. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1989.tb00866.x

Krosnick, J. A., & Brannon, L. A. (1993). The Impact of the Gulf War on the Ingredients of Presidential Evaluations: Multidimensional Effects of Political Involvement. American Political Science Review, 87(4), 963–975. https://doi.org/10.2307/2938828

Mason, L. (2016). A Cross-Cutting Calm: How Social Sorting Drives Affective Polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(S1), 351–377. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfw001

Ostrom, T. M., & Sedikides, C. (1992). Out-group homogeneity effects in natural and minimal groups. Psychological Bulletin, 112(3), 536–552. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.112.3.536

Sherman, A. (2020). Trump’s false claim that Biden is a socialist. In Politifact. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/oct/15/donald-trump/trumps-false-claim-biden-socialist/.

The Comparative Study Of Electoral Systems. (2020). CSES Module 5 Advanced Release 2. CSES - Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. https://doi.org/10.7804/CSES.MODULE5.2020-05-14

Appendix 1: German Case

Figure 1: Party Perceptions by Voter Group in Germany

Appendix 2: Coding Agreement

Country	Mean Agreement
Austria	0.93
Denmark	0.89
Germany	0.86
Italy	0.87
Netherlands	0.86
Norway	0.89
Portugal	0.91
Sweden	0.94
United Kingdom	0.85